Natural Environment of South Asia

The label “South Asia” can be conven­iently applied to the countries which lie between the two broad realms of South­west Asia and Southeast Asia. This broad region extends from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east and covers 1.7 million sq. miles (4.4 million sq. km) and in­cludes the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka; the Himalayan kingdom’s of Nepal and Bhutan; and the tiny country of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and the Maldives formed a part of the British Indian Empire prior to at­taining independence in 1947-48.

Nepal and Bhutan, never formally annexed by Britain, were regarded as within the British sphere of influence and were once British protectorates. The entire territory coin­cides to a remarkable degree with the geographic concept of the Indian subconti­nent, the ancient, mythic Bharatavarsha (the official name of India is Bharat), a title that is rooted in the territorial lay-out of the subcontinent and the disposition of physical features within it.

Hemmed in ef­fectively by the Himalaya Mountains’ influences from the north, and circum­scribed by the peninsular coasts, the subcontinent developed a unique form of civilization, popularly known as the In­dian civilization. The region juts into the Indian Ocean as a peninsula, with the two arms of the Indian Ocean: the Bay of Ben­gal and the Arabian Sea, flanking its coasts.

The Equator passes through the southern part of the Maldives, while the north­ernmost extremity extends as far as 39° north. The Tropic of Cancer divides the nations of India and Bangladesh into two parts, leaving the peninsular part of India and Sri Lanka in the tropical zone.

In reviewing the long history of South Asia one clearly sees a cultural and geo­graphic unity that transcends the diversity of languages and religions within it. The histories of these nations have been so in­extricably intertwined as to include them all within the influence of Indian culture. The Indian Culture represents a third dis­tinctive stream in Asian history—the other two being the civilizations of China and Islam. In the north, the Himalaya Mountains acted as an effective barrier, bolstered in large measure by the elevated and forbidding Tibetan plateau. The two civilizations of China and India matured independently and exclusively.

On the western side, isolation was less restrictive. Pakistan, and the west of it— Afghanistan lay at the crossroads between Islamic penetration from the west and the heartland of the Indian subcontinent. The Afghani mountains, breached by several passes could not deter a succession of peri­odic invasions starting with the ancient Aryans to the Mughals during medieval times.

In due course, the Mughals, as did the invaders who had come to India prior to them, became Indianized, absorbing many of the native mores, and transmit­ting their forms of art, music, literature and philosophy to India. Through this in­teraction a unique and enduring Indo- Islamic synthesis took place.

By virtue of her size, population, central location, and cultural preeminence, India has played a pivotal role in the region throughout his­tory. Even as South Asia moved into a period of independence after the dissolu­tion of British rule, India’s dominant role remains.

Natural Environment:

The general ar­rangement of South Asia’s landforms is simply laid. In the north rises the massive mountain wall of the Himalaya (literally “Abode of Snow”) system together with its eastern and western offshoots giving the subcontinent a sort of geographic unity. South of it lies the Indus-Ganga Plains, with an extension into the Brahmaputra Valley in the east, making it one of the largest stretches of lowland in the world. The southern and peninsular part of the subcontinent is occupied mostly by the Deccan (literally “the South”) Plateau, flanked by mountains and narrow coastal plains. Within this threefold division exists, a considerable diversity of structure, drain­age and topography.

The Himalaya forms a part of an ex­tensive and complex mountain system, the hub of which lies in Central Asia in the Pamir Knot. From the Pamirs it swings in an unbroken arc of several parallel ranges for over 1,500 miles (2,400 km), rising abruptly to form the northern, western, and eastern borders of the subcontinent. Its central and the highest range, the Great Himalaya, contain 40 peaks which rise to altitudes between 25,000 and 29,028 feet (7,600 and 8,848 meters). The highest elevation in the world, Mount Everest (Sagarmatha) 29,028 feet (8,848 meters) lies on the Nepal-Tibet border.

The Himalayan scenery is among the most spectacular and grand in the world. These ranges, together with the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau fur­ther north, have exercised profound climatic influence on the subcontinent. The mountains act as an effective barrier blocking the inflow of cold, dry air-masses into north India during winter.

During summer they deflect the moisture-laden monsoon winds along the Himalayas’ southern flanks, and cause the moist winds to bring precipitation to the North Indian Plain and the Brahmaputra Valley. The Himalaya is also a feeding ground of nu­merous rivers which are utilized for year-round irrigation in Pakistan and on the North Indian Plain.

The western offshoots of the Hima­laya, in general, extend in a north-south direction along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, extending southward all the way to the Arabian Sea. The eastern mountain arcs lie beyond the gorge of the Brahmapu­tra, running in a series of mountain ranges along the Myanmar border and continuing into Myanmar. These are not as rugged or high as the main Himalaya but are covered with dense forests. Historically, this dis­ease-ridden and rain-swept land has been a difficult zone of movement.

Just south of the Himalaya, lies the vast Indus-Ganga plain of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It includes the lowlands of the catchment area of the two major riv­ers, the Ganga and the Indus, together with their tributaries. Occupying only one-fifth of the area, but supporting half the population of South Asia, these plains have historically been the core region of its political, economic and cultural activities.

The Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta forms the southern projection of the lowlands at the head of the Bay of Bengal. East of the lower Indus section of the plains lies the Thar Desert, an extension of the adjacent plain. The topography of the Indus-Ganga plain is essentially flat, averaging a drop of less than a foot per mile, with a long, nearly straight horizon.

The topography should not, however, be considered as ab­solutely flat. Locally, however, terraces may rise as much as 100-200 feet (30-60 me­ters) relieving the general monotony. Partition of the subcontinent in 1947 cre­ated physical and human problems, both in the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta and on the Indus Plain.

The main problem hinged around the division of the waters between the new countries. In the Punjab, a name which means five rivers and derives from the five tributaries of the Indus, political partitioning created problems by disrupt­ing existing irrigation systems, and transport lines.

The peninsular part of the subconti­nent is mostly a raised tableland of old, stable structure, known generally as the Deccan Plateau. The Deccan, in fact, in­cludes a number of basins in addition to several plateaus of subdued relief, with ele­vations ranging between 1,000 and 3,000 feet (300 and 900 meters) above sea level and is flanked on the west and east coasts by the coastal ranges.

In the south, near where the two coastal ranges appear to merge, are two high granitic massifs, the Nilgiri Hills and the Cardamon Hills, ris­ing to elevations of about 8,500 feet (2,600 meters). The western flanking ranges the Western Ghats or the Sahyadri Mountains rise as a bold escarpment of 4,000 to 5,000 feet (1,200 to 1,500 meters) above the west­ern coast, leaving a very narrow coastal plain.

Seen from the interior the Western Ghats assume a hill-like appearance. The discontinuous ranges flanking the eastern side of the Deccan Plateau are collectively termed the Eastern Ghats and with alti­tudes of 2,000-2,500 feet (600-750 meters) are neither as high nor rugged as the west­ern Ghats. These are merely discontinuous hills.